Blood for the making, blood for the breaking
by suspiciousteapot
Summary: Touchstone struggles to repair the Great Charter Stones in Belisaere


"Sire. Sire."

Touchstone heard a voice calling to him from what seemed to be a great distance, but he couldn't make out the words. The barge seemed to be shaking, and he felt a rush of panic, remembering the waves caused by Kerrigor's mordicant running towards him. He jolted awake, automatically reaching for his swords.

"King Touchstone, it is Damed. You are in the reservoir. You fell asleep mending the Great Stones." Damed said calmly.

It was not the first time Damed had woken him like this. It had become common for Touchstone to be found unconscious by the Great Charter Stones, completely drained by his attempts to fix them. The guards were usually alerted by Touchstone calling out, trapped in a nightmare.

Damed was always the one to find him, as he among the guards had the best tolerance towards the Stones' effects. However even he still showed signs of strain and nausea, and could not linger by the broken Stones. Stones Touchstone had been labouring to fix for just over a month with little progress. Touchstone himself now felt the Stones' effects only as a slight tightening of the chest, habituated as he was to their presence.

Damed spoke the mark to propel their barges back to the stairway. Touchstone felt so weak he worried he would not even have energy enough to scale the stairs out of the reservoir unaided. He did not need to ask. Damed helped him up, and kept his arm around him, bearing much of his weight as they climbed the stairs.

When he first began his work on the Great Stones, Touchstone had been optimistic. He and Sabriel had just been married and coronated, and restoring the Kingdom had seemed a manageable, if very difficult task.

They had, of course, encountered difficulties, but he and Sabriel had faced them together, and many had allied themselves to the King and the Abhorsen. The years of chaos had made many people turn to making deals with the Dead, but a surprisingly large fraction of the population had held out hope that the monarchy would be restored and the kingdom brought back to its former glory.

As they had expected, their marriage was challenged, mainly by several of Touchstone's new advisors who thought they were resting too much on one marriage, and by the heads of noble families with daughters around Touchstone's age. That obstacle was dealt with by repeatedly explaining their decision to wed and firmly stating that they would not reconsider, and by shutting down the not-so-subtle suggestions that Touchstone would be better off with a different queen.

The main opposition to their rule came not, as they had thought it might, from the fact that Touchstone was a bastard and a berserk, and Sabriel an Ancelstierrian (there was no pretending otherwise, with her accent). Those were accepted, with quite a bit of gossip, but largely without challenge. Instead, their principal political opposition came from those in league with the Dead. Those who said the Bloodlines were not the harbingers of safety people hoped further aggravated this problem. Such fearmongers spoke at length about Kerrigor being Touchstone's brother, as though this alone were proof that individuals of the Bloodlines could not be trusted. However, their words rang hollow as Sabriel and a band of trained Clayr and skilled fighters from the city steadily rid Belisaere of the Dead.

Touchstone had wanted to start work on the Stones immediately; arguing that holding off on fixing them was lending strength to the words of their opponents. Sabriel and several of the Clayr disagreed, arguing that he should wait until they had a more solid political base, and until Sabriel had banished as many Dead as was possible with the Stones in their current state.

Once the last of the Dead had been banished from the foothills around the city, Sabriel had reluctantly declared it safe enough for him to begin his work. She warned him that the barrier between Life and Death was still wide open, and other things would find their way through, but she did not tell him to wait. They both knew that danger would not be eliminated until the Stones were mended. To protect against that threat as much as was possible, he had already asked two of his most trusted and skilled guards to stand watch at the top of the stairs. As it would turn out, their role would end up being more about protecting him from himself than from any being seeking to take advantage of his weakness.

The Clayr that had come to help them fight the Dead had also brought books from their library that they had thought might be helpful for mending the Great Stones. Some were manuals of complex spells, while others were histories. One very old volume – a journal - described what seemed to be a method for mending a Great Stone. Whether or not it had worked, the Clayr sadly did not know. In addition to this, the spells listed were written in an old form of the shorthand used to write spells. Many hundreds of years ago, the shorthand for spells varied from village to village, and this particular shorthand was not known. A librarian had attempted to translate it based on other known shorthands, but there were large portions of the spell she could only guess the translation for. Still, it was the most promising avenue of research he had.

The Book of the Dead yielded more answers. When he and Sabriel were coming back to Belisaere after returning to the Old Kingdom, they had decided to fix as many of the regular Charter Stones as possible on their way. They had known some would likely be broken anew while they were in Belisaere, but they decided that the relief they would provide to the people in the area made it worth the effort. Sabriel had combed The Book of the Dead, searching for any information about how to mend the stones. The Book had confirmed their suspicion that blood magic would be necessary, "Blood for the breaking, blood for the making." Starting with that knowledge, they had fixed the lesser stones together, each individual stone requiring a slight variation on a standard, though fairly complex, set of mending spells.

The night before Touchstone started work on the Great Stones, Sabriel had reread the passage about mending Charter Stones from the Book to see if it would tell them anything about mending them. He had considered this a futile endeavor, as the Book had not mentioned them the first time, but as she had told him it might, the passage had changed.

Blood to right the wrongs caused by mine

Blood to mend the wounds of the broken line

Strength take and time forsake

Death to break and life to make

They had both sat in silence for some time, contemplating the message.

"I could help you, when I'm here." Sabriel offered, in a commanding tone he had recognized as being one she only used when she knew she was wrong, but could not accept any other plan. "That way you wouldn't have to bear the burden alone."

Touchstone turned down the offer. He knew it hurt her to think of him going down to the Stones day after day and not be able to help, just as it hurt him to watch her fly away to fight the Dead and other evils. He loved that despite everything, she would rather do more work herself than leave him to this potentially fatal task alone, but he also knew they both understood that she could not aid him in this endeavor.

"Royal blood broke the Stones, so royal blood must mend them," he replied with all of the courage he could summon.

In truth, part of him longed for her to push back, to tell him she would still go down with him, help him with the spells, and lend him her strength. But the larger part of him knew that she too was exhausted, and could not to stay with him and give him strength. She was strong, certainly, but being strong did not mean you could endure everything. He could not impose this additional burden on her. Besides, she could not stay in Belisaere for longer than a few days at a time. She knew that as well as he did. The kingdom was still overrun with the Dead and Free Magic creatures. She was needed elsewhere.

She frowned. "I know royal blood must make them, but the gate to Death is wide open. While you mend the Stones, something may sense your vulnerability and take advantage of that opportunity to attack you. You would be defenseless."

"We've talked about this. That is a risk I will have to take," he said gently, taking her hand in his.

"No." Sabriel said sharply, shaking her head. "I know we agreed you would have to, but I cannot accept it. That's too much of a risk. You have the skill to repair the Stones, I'm not arguing that, but the gate to Death is so wide open, and you would be vulnerable. I know…" She bit her lip and looked away.

"I know I cannot stay with you," she admitted grudgingly, rubbing her temple in thought. Then she stopped abruptly, her eyes distant, as an idea had come to her. "But I am not leaving you unprotected."

She turned back; fixing him with her piercing eyes "Do you remember the wind flutes?"

"The ones you set up by the Perimeter?" He asked, sensing where she was going with this. "I thought those only worked in the open air."

"Yes, but if I modified the spells slightly so that they were stronger and only required a very slight breeze…" she opened the Book of the Dead once more, rapidly rifling through the pages.

He watched her search. Her jaw was tense, and the fingers not flipping through the pages of the Book were tapping the table anxiously. He thought the idea of him fixing the Stones alone might actually scare her more than it scared him. Yet she also seemed completely confident that if he did not die, he would succeed in mending them. He took comfort in that.

Sabriel worked all evening and all of the following day creating and testing her modified wind flutes, forbidding him from going down to the reservoir before she'd finished them. Touchstone worked on planning the spells he would try first. He wrote down what they had done to fix the minor stones, and went through the volumes the Clayr had given him to add more complex spells of mending. The outline of his plan he took from the old journal, carefully recording the spells that seemed to have been the most successful. That evening Sabriel decided the wind flutes worked as well as they possibly could, and together they reviewed Touchstone's plan. He would begin the following morning.

Touchstone felt a cold terror wash over him as he and Sabriel descended the stone steps to the reservoir for the first time since they had fled it. Kerrigor slept in the Abhorsen's house, and they had bound him in so many ways he could not possibly escape unaided. Yet still Touchstone had felt as though the twisted, corrupted being his brother had become was waiting for him down in the cold, damp darkness of the reservoir. In some ways he was.

As he looked upon the broken stones, he saw his sisters with their throats cut, lying beside the Stones that had been broken with their blood. He saw what had once been his brother draw the knife across their mother's throat. He heard the column of Dead clapping as Kerrigor walked towards him, Sabriel and her father. He heard the deep toll of a mournful bell calling to him to give up.

Now that he had been working for over a month, going down to the reservoir no longer terrified and sickened him. Instead, it exhausted him, each step taking more of his energy, each spell taking more of his life. He drew some solace from the fact that Sabriel's flutes had seemed to work as they were supposed to; nothing from the River had attempted to attack him. But he knew that though he was protected from any external threat, he was still far from safe.

At first, he had tried to pace himself, starting with the spells he and Sabriel had used on the lesser Stones, cutting his hand anew for each one. When that had failed, he'd tried other combinations of them, adding the spells from the volumes the Clayr had given him. He worked long hours; ignoring is body's protests of hunger and fatigue, desperate not to leave the stones without having made any progress whatsoever.

Always when he worked, he heard faint, distant music, as though someone was singing or humming far away, or some small bell was tolling somewhere in the palace above him. He knew could not be the flutes, as they only sounded in Death. He knew not from whence the music came, and the guards had heard nothing. He wondered if he was going mad. Sometimes the melody called to mind marks or parts of spells when he focused on it, but other times the music was more gentle and melodious, like the lullabies his mother used to sing to him when he was little. These made him feel tired, and strangely cold. He began to recognize these lullabies as precursors of his fainting spells, signs his exhaustion had beaten him.

As the days and then weeks went by with no success whatsoever, his frustration reached a boiling point. He threw himself at the problem in a berserker rage, desperately rearranging parts of the spells and pulling in other marks from further into the Charter than any sane person would dare reach. Too far.

Twice the spells overwhelmed him, throwing him to the border of Death. The second time, he barely managed to pull himself back into Life. Each time, the ever-present lullaby seemed louder, and for a brief moment it called to him to stop fighting, to sleep as he so longed to. Yet each time the adrenaline from the realization that he had crossed into Death kept him from obeying it.

After the second time, Touchstone resolved once more to pace himself. If he died in this work, the royal line would die with him. He doubted past Kings and Queens would wait for him in Death to help him back towards Life as Sabriel had told him her predecessors had helped her. And even then, Sabriel had only returned because of her strength. The Abhorsens had lifted her out of the River, but she had walked back into Life. For all that Sabriel believed in him, Touchstone doubted he had her fortitude.

His brush with Death left him shaking and weak, again in need of Damed's assistance to climb the many stairs leading to his chambers. Once upstairs, he took stock of the situation. There was some sort of resistance pushing against him every time he tried to cast a spell. The Stones themselves were seemed to be opposing his attempts to fix them. Figuring out how to get around that would have to be his first step.

With that in mind, the following morning Touchstone tried stronger Master Marks, Marks to search for spells they could to bind to, instead of ones that forced their way into other spells in an attempt to bind to the rift between the halves. As the spells settled over the Stone, he could feel something falling into place. It was a peripheral fix, he knew; a patch that would soon tear once more. Yet it was all he had, and more than he'd had for the last few weeks, so he clung to it.

Soon his work on this faltered too. Trying to stitch the patches into a larger fix was leading him in circles. Every time he descended into the damp cold of the reservoir he could feel the exhaustion settling over him, bowing his shoulders and dulling his mind. He knew he was getting no closer to fixing the deeper problem.

Once again the anger rose within him and he threw himself into the task, and into Death. Once again, the spells overwhelmed him and he awoke to Damed shaking him and calling his title. Once again he tried to find a new way to approach his impossible task.

He and Sabriel argued more often now, both of their tempers fueled by the constant pressure they were under, and Touchstone's wearing thin due to his lack of sleep and progress. Their fights did not usually last, knowing their anger and frustration was not truly directed at one another. What was more, they needed each other. Needed each other's counsel, support, love, and comfort. And both were very conscious that if they parted in anger, spiteful words might be the last they ever spoke to one another.

The Stones constantly occupied his mind, though he wanted desperately to leave them behind once he left the reservoir. He felt as though he were in a strange haze, never able to fully escape their influence. Even sleep offered no respite. In his dreams he saw marks join and weave themselves into endless spells. Spells that always failed. And beneath it all, he heard the lullabies, calling him to leave the spells and sleep, truly and deeply. He woke feeling just as exhausted as he had when he'd gone to sleep.

Each morning when he looked in the mirror, he saw more grey in his hair and more lines on his face. He saw his face become thin and drawn, and the circles under his eyes become darker.

When Sabriel returned, he watched as her face fell upon seeing him. They communicated via message hawk or letter, and though he told her of all he did with the Stones, he had not told her how he had changed.

She took him in her arms and they embraced for a long time. Finally, she pulled back a bit and raised her eyes to his. She was crying, he saw, and knew that he was too. She ran a hand through his hair, trying to come to terms with what the silver streaks meant.

"How long?" she whispered, as though by asking quietly she could soften the blow of his answer.

"The Clayr think it might be a year for every month I've been working," Touchstone said. They had told him this after the first couple of weeks of his work, as though he did not know the cost of his work was great.

"Strength take and life forsake." Sabriel repeated the words, now fully understanding their meaning.

He nodded.

They said nothing, and he braced himself for the question he knew she would ask next, and the answer he would have to give.

"How much longer?" How much more of your life - of _our_ life - will we lose?

He forced himself not to look away. "I do not know."

She nodded slowly and bit her lip, trying to accept that, trying not to let it break her. As he saw her sorrow and fear, Touchstone felt the rage rising in him, his hands curling into fists.

He did not know how many years of his life he would lose, but he knew each one would have been a year spent in more peaceful times, far in the future, with his family, with Sabriel. It was not fair.

Sabriel laid her head on his shoulder. Abruptly the rage fell away to leave him yet more exhausted. He laid his head on her shoulder as well and held her closer. There was nobody to fight; he could not save either of them from what Kerrigor had caused.

He did not work on the Stones every day. Though he was officially the king, he was still walking on thin ice politically. Fixing the Stones was a key component in solidifying his position, but proving that he could be a competent and fair king was just as important. At least twice a week he met with envoys from different villages throughout the kingdom, to secure their loyalty and help how he could with their needs. Many were full of hope at the bright future they were sure he and Sabriel would bring. Others remained skeptical. A few - ones he suspected were in league with the Dead - still tried to denounce him. The continued support of the Clayr and Sabriel were invaluable. Sabriel in particular was winning over many of the town elders and other leaders. From her messages he knew that for the most part, the elders or other leaders were happy to lend her political support once she'd cleared the town and surrounding area of the Dead that had plagued them.

Touchstone also made sure to meet with his people. Several of his close advisors had said they would meet with the public in his stead, but he had declined their offers. He wanted his citizens to know he cared about their problems, and he wanted to be sure himself that he did not become distanced from the everyday lives and troubles of the people to whom he was ultimately accountable.

Some came to ask whether he would send help to rebuild the street they were living on. The palace had been the first place the builders and others who were able to help had begun to rebuild. It had been a sign to their opponents that they were not backing down. They had rebuilt his and Sabriel's chambers, the kitchen, and the throne room where he held meetings and hear his people. After these were completed, just before his coronation, he had ordered work on the palace to cease. It was no longer a ruin, and rebuilding the rest of the city was now the priority. He could thus happily answer these questions, as what help he had was busy rebuilding the parts of the city that had fallen into ruin, so he could assure them they would soon receive aid.

With those who asked other things of him, he had to admit that he was limited in what he could do to help them right away, as he needed to spend much of his time mending the Stones, and almost everyone else was engaged in the rebuilding efforts. However, he wrote down their names and their concerns, and always made an effort to find some way to help them.

To his joy, many people had recently come to offer assistance to their new king. These he put under the direction of a man called Jall Oren. Jall was a young man from Belisaere who had previously been trying to organize people to free the children from the slavers. So far he had been a tremendous help, and worked hard at whatever task Touchstone set him to. In this way it became possible to send small groups of people to help others. He set up a similar system in other towns that were now free of the Dead. Writing to various elders and town leaders, Touchstone coordinated teams of volunteer workers headed by a reliable person or group of people.

Touchstone wished he could spend more time on this work, even though it too was tiring and he was still uneasy in his position and unsure of how to maneuver the intricate difficulties of politics. He even preferred deciding what to do with corrupt nobles and gangs of scavengers to fishing for spells that might kill him, and trying to apply them to a system so old there was no documentation of how it even came to be.

He loved being able to help his people, to help them help each other, and even began to enjoy the political games of words and will. He loved feeling some degree of competence, and of confidence in himself; knowing he was making headway with his work, as opposed to blindly attempting to fix a problem he barely understood.

Between the Stones, the politicians and his people, he got little sleep. What sleep he did get was fractured by dreams of spells and the lullabies inviting him to a deeper and much longer sleep, of the reservoir, of Kerrigor, of Sabriel lying motionless, impaled on her sword, and other horrors he could not identify and that vanished when he woke, gasping and shaking, alone.

He did not eat when mending the Stones, it being far too dangerous for the guards to approach him while he was casting spells. Sometimes he took food down with him, but often he simply brought it back up again at the end of the day, having forgotten it in his intense focus on the problem at hand.

The faraway music continued to reveal marks to him, marks he had not been searching for. Only now they were marks of breaking. Marks to undo all that he had done. He thought again this was likely a symptom of madness. The lullabies too were far louder now, seeming to come from the depths of the reservoir. He wondered whether they came from the Stones. It seemed more than likely that they were taking his mind as well as his strength. It was some time before he realized the reverse was true. The Stones were keeping him sane, keeping him alive.

Now in his second month of work, he had become even more desperate for a solution, and had begun to use Free Magic interwoven with the Charter Magic. He had been working all day without a break, struggling with a long, complex spell, woven from several that he had found amongst the books the Clayr had given him. He could see the strands of the spell, bright in his mind, but the Free Magic in it threatened its stability. It seemed to want to obscure part of the spell, and at times it would hide the spell completely, so that he had to recall it all at once to be able to continue. It also seemed intent on scrambling his memory of the marks, suggesting darker, more dangerous ones than the ones he had in place. More than once he was overwhelmed, and had to drop the thread of the spell completely to avoid being lost in the Free Magic. As he struggled with the magic, he also battled his own exhaustion. Even now, as he fought, he could feel himself submitting to it.

He felt water lapping against his shins, and knew it was not the water in the reservoir. This water was much too cold. Despite knowing he had crossed into Death, he was too tired to walk away. He heard the lullaby, quiet but close by. As he stood in the River, listening to its soft refrain, he felt more peaceful than he had in months.

Now that he allowed himself to listen to it, he realized that it had no words, and he could not even identify a distinct tune. It seemed to him to be coming from slightly further down the River. He wanted to hear more of it, for he felt sure that when he heard it clearly, he would finally be able to rest. But he heard another song that seemed to come from behind him. Though it too had no words, it reminded him that going down the River called him further away from everything he had been working for, from Sabriel, from Life. He felt the water flowing steadily past him, the current tugging at his body. He noticed that he was now on his back, though he could not remember lying down. Though the River was moving fairly rapidly, he remarked that he did not seem to be moving with it. He forced himself to snap out of his haze. Tired though he was, he did not want to sleep permanently. He struggled to rise. It was easier than he expected. The lullaby seemed to grow more distant, and the River - though it felt more forceful now - was unable to pull him back down.

"Touchstone!"

 _Sabriel?_ He turned.

She ran towards him, moving as quickly as the current allowed. He walked towards her without difficulty, and then all but fell into her arms, relief washing over him. Once again, she had come to rescue him, to bring him back to Life.

"We cannot linger," said Sabriel, breaking the embrace, but taking his hand. She led them back towards Life.

"Something was holding me back against the current," he told her as they walked.

"That's impossible."

They crossed back into Life and he stumbled, reaching out to the Stones for support. They seemed to buzz under his hands and through them he felt what seemed like the vibrations of a song. It was the same one he'd heard in the River, reminding him of all he had to live for.

He stared at the Stones, finally understanding.

"It was the Stones," he said in wonder, "They were breaking the current."

Sabriel studied his face anxiously, his nonsensical statement scaring her almost as much as finding his unconscious body. But her confusion and fear faded as he told her about the songs he'd heard, and how the current of Death had not been able to move him.

She eyed the Stones warily and pursed her lips.

"They're keeping me alive, Sabriel," he insisted, "just as your ancestors kept you alive when Kerrigor tried to kill you."

The barge bumped against the lowest stair, startling him. He hadn't even been aware they were moving. Sabriel quickly secured the boat. He was about to tell her to bring him back, that he needed to continue, that couldn't stop now that he'd had a breakthrough.

Anticipating his protest, Sabriel fixed him with a look that made it clear that any attempts to argue would be futile. "We are absolutely not turning back."

He began to object, and stood to walk over and untie the barge. But as he did so, he swayed, and his vision dimmed, bright spots flashing in front of his eyes. Sabriel rushed to support him, and he leaned on her heavily. She had made the right decision. He was so weak and tired that he would likely kill himself if he kept working now. His lack of awareness of his own infirmity frightened him.

Sabriel helped him back up to their room. Outside, the sun was setting. He sat down, and Sabriel turned away from him, taking off her bandolier and sword-belt. She said nothing.

"You're angry." He observed.

"You're reckless and you take unnecessary risks," she replied sharply, still facing the other way.

"AND YOU DON'T?" He exploded, suddenly furious that she should be angry with him for saying his attempts at arguably the most important task in the restoration of the kingdom were 'unnecessary risks'.

She turns back to him, eyes flashing. "You've almost died three times now trying to repair these stones. Damed told me how you work all day, go to bed late and rise before everyone else, and I've seen it myself. You're getting weak from lack of food and dizzy from lack of sleep, yet you don't stop. I know you feel guilty about what Kerrigor did, but for Charter's sake don't martyr yourself."

He swore and rose from his chair. "You think I'm doing this for – what? Fun? You think I can stop? Relax? Maybe take a small vacation?"

He was being petulant and mean, and he was ashamed of the words as soon as he'd spoken them.

"Stop." Sabriel ordered, though her voice trembled slightly. "You're being absurd."

The anger left as abruptly as it had materialized, his exhaustion returning full force. He knew she was tired too, and that she was only upset because she cared about him and recognized the danger he was in. Danger he was aggravating by neglecting to care for himself.

"I know. I know. I didn't mean it. I'm just…I just snapped. I'm sorry," he said, walking over and lightly placing a hand on her arm. "I'm so sorry."

For a moment, she tensed, still angry and not ready to accept his apology. But then she sighed and wrapped her arms around him, resting her forehead against his.

"Remember what you told me, when I was trying to clear the Dead out of the city?" She asked after a moment.

He nodded, and closed his eyes, too weary to keep them open. He had told her that she could not care exclusively for others and completely ignore her own needs. That she needed to care for herself just as much as for everyone else, for her sake as much as for everyone else's.

"I know. I haven't been heeding my own advice."

"No, you haven't been," she admonished gently, tilting his head back up. "Touchstone."

He forced himself to open his eyes again, and he could see how scared she was. He knew he must truly look frighteningly ill.

"Please rest. Not just for a few hours. Take a few days. Sleep until you actually feel rested."

He nodded again. She was right. He had been pretending that he could keep going at the same pace he had been before he'd started work on the Stones, stubbornly ignoring all signs he could not. He would take a break, and then try to approach the problem from yet another angle.

"I'm supposed to meet with an envoy from High Bridge tomorrow morning," he said wearily as he sat back down, collapsing into one of the chairs at the small table by the window where they sometimes took their meals.

She shook her head, as she sat down opposite him. "I'll talk to them."

"Thank you." She was amazing, this wife of his.

"Are you awake enough to have some dinner?" she asked.

He nodded. He was exhausted, but his body was also protesting the fact that all he'd had to eat that day was an apple and a piece of bread with honey in the morning.

"And you?" He asked, studying her face for signs of ill health. "Have you been getting enough food and rest?" She looked tired, of course, but not completely drained. She certainly did not look as ill and worn as she had when she was fighting the Dead in Belisaere. As worn as he must look now.

"Usually, though I did skip lunch today because I forgot to pack it before I flew back here. I'll ask for our dinner to be brought up."

They ate and went straight to bed, Touchstone falling asleep seemingly before his head even touched the pillow.

He heeded her advice and slept far into the next day. He woke up several times, sometimes to darkness, sometimes to light, but as he did not feel rested, he willed himself to back to sleep each time.

The next day, he got up to eat, attend to the mail that had arrived for him the previous day, and meet with Jall, before falling back into bed, completely spent despite his lack of activity.

When he woke once more, it was night, and Sabriel was curled up behind him, her arm around his chest and her body pressed against his.

He turned over and drew her closer to him. She kissed his neck, and he brought her mouth to his.

Slowly he traced his hands down her body.

"Did I wake you?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she answered, kissing him again and pressing herself closer to him. "But I'm not in the mood to go back to sleep."

He kissed her deeply, slowly leaving her lips to make his way down her body. It had been a long while since had been since they'd been able to take their time with each other.

With her, he felt strong and confident, able to do anything. With her, the exhaustion was gone, and he felt awake more awake than he had in months. He held her as close as he could, bodies moving silently in the darkness.

Sabriel was - as she had been since she brought him out of Death in Holehallow - the one who anchored him in life; the one who made him feel alive. And life was what they had created that evening, though they didn't know it then.

She left the next morning. He tried to hold onto the hope he'd felt the night before, but it vanished with her paperwing. Even if he survived his tasks, he reflected as he descended to the reservoir, she might not survive hers. He felt despair and exhaustion settle over him once more.

She returned two and a half months later on a rainy afternoon in early June. As soon as she climbed out of the cockpit, he feared she came with news of some new problem. Her face was drawn, and she looked more worried than normal.

He took her hands urgently, looking her over for signs of injury.

"Sabriel, what's wrong? Are you alright?"

She smiled a tired smile that did not reach her eyes. "Don't worry, I'm fine." She turned away to gather her belongings from the paperwing. Touchstone went to help her.

"I know something is wrong," he insisted as they walked down to their chambers with her packs.

She put her bags down heavily and turned to face him.

"I'm pregnant."

He stared at her, not fully comprehending her words.

"Last time…we forgot the spell," she explained, her eyes searching his face for a reaction.

He was still blankly staring at her, his mind shocked into discord.

She took his face in her hands. "Are you alright?"

With that, everything snapped back into place. Sabriel was pregnant. They were going to have a child.

He kissed her enthusiastically.

"We're going to be parents!" He exclaimed, grinning.

She laughed. "We're going to be parents."

He laughed as well, and kissed her again, overjoyed.

Yet as they broke apart, he noticed that though she was smiling, her eyes were still full of fear. His grin faded.

The kingdom was still a dangerous place. Far more dangerous than what he would like their child to be born into. What was more, as soon as the child was born, Sabriel's life would be in greater danger, as there would be someone to succeed her. Her predecessors would no longer raise her out of the River should she suffer a fatal injury. Most frightening of all was that he knew she was going to keep working throughout her pregnancy.

"Touchstone you know I can't stay," she said sadly, reading the thoughts written so clearly on his face.

"Sabriel, please don't."

"I have to, just as you have to tend to the Stones."

"This is not the same. It will be far more perilous."

" _Will_ be. When I'm too large to fight. That won't be for some months yet, and in the meantime I can't abandon our people."

"We can train a branch of the guard -" he began, desperately search for some way of allowing her to cease her work for the next few months.

"I've already started to do so, that was why I requested Loran and the others last month. But - "

"You knew last month?" He interjected. "And you didn't tell me?"

"Well did you want to hear it from a hawk?" She snapped back.

He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again, trying to consider how he would have felt in that situation. "No, I guess not." He shook his head. That was not what he was concerned about. "I was...I'm just surprised. That means in less than eight months…" The thought that he was going to be a father - and so soon - was still too much for him to completely comprehend. "You've already started training the guard?"

"Yes, but as they obviously cannot take my bells, they won't be able to ensure the Dead go past the Ninth, and cannot do much about non-physical entities. It would be best for everyone if I keep working until it becomes impossible."

He sighed, not yet ready to accept her solution. "Will our child not be harmed by your ventures into Death?"

She shook her head "I've reread part of the Book of the Dead, and I've talked with Mogget. Both agree that my life force will shield our child from Death's influence."

She gently took his face in her hands once more.

"Touchstone, I have to do this."

However much it pained him, he knew he must accept that she was right.

Watching her leave this time was almost impossible. As her blue and silver paperwing dwindled in the distance, he decided that the Stones would have to be fixed before their child was born. The world their child was born into would still be a dangerous one, but he could do his part to make it safer. What was more, he did not want to start his fatherhood by leaving his wife and child every day to work long hours and return haggard and tired. He wanted to be with his small family as much as he could while there was time.

One morning several weeks later, as Touchstone was once again studying the Stones for something he was sure he must have been missing, the reason all his efforts had ended in failure slowly dawned on him. Some spells had been placed within the Stones, inserted into the border of Death. They were woven of Free and Charter Magic, the Free Magic having been integrated into segments of the Charter Magic that formed a barrier between Death and Life. They were holding the halves of the stones apart, and keeping the door to Death open.

Suddenly part of the puzzle became clearer. The marks for breaking that had been appearing in his mind uncalled for must be the ones needed to break the source of the resistance he felt when he tried to cast spells of mending, and the resistance must be coming from the spells in Death's border.

He had been thinking he had to stitch together a tear, but now he understood that the Stones were not just broken by his family's blood, but held in their broken state by other spells that he had not felt that must have been cast at the same time. Just as Sabriel had to rid Belisaere of Kerrigor and his minions before they could begin to rebuild the city and mend the Stones, he must first get rid of the corruption keeping the Stones broken before he could mend them.

He felt as though he had finally understood something someone had been trying to explain to him for a long time, yet he was sure this was not in any of the books, and he felt sure that no living person knew of this. This made him uneasy, and he proceeded with caution.

He set to work weaving the spells that would break the corruption. He worked slowly and carefully, knowing the Free Magic in the spells he was attempting to unravel would likely try to tip him into Death, as it had done before.

He selected from the marks he felt at the back of his mind, organizing and joining them in different ways, adding linking marks and a couple of Master Marks to hold the spells together. He reopened one of the cuts on his hand and, placing his hand on the broken stone, he released the spells.

The resistance was still there, but this time he felt it fracture, his spells winning out. He was momentarily triumphant, before he realized the spells he had cast were eating away at the rest of the border, as well as the corrupted parts. Quickly, he mentally fumbled for marks to halt the progress of his spell and bind the ends of the other spells.

 _Damn it! I should have realized I could not just remove the corrupted parts without binding the break._ Doing so was like cutting a rope without burning the ends; it would all start to unravel. He held onto the ends of the spells that formed the barrier as he began to piece together a binding spell, knowing he ran the risk of destroying the border completely if he let them go. His hands shook and he cast the binding spells, and he cursed his nearly catastrophic mistake.

"Sire! It is night now!" Touchstone jumped at the call. It was just Damed.

"Thank you Damed." Touchstone called back. He had asked Damed and his fellow guard to tell him when it was noon and when it was evening, so he did not inadvertently neglect his own needs, as he had previously made the mistake of doing, but the alerts still alarmed him when he was deep in concentration.

He checked that the spells were secure, and then spoke the mark to propel the barge back to the stairs. As he did, it occurred to him that the marks for breaking must have been coming from the Stones. Just as they had been keeping him alive, they had also being trying to help him mend them. They wanted to be fixed. He cursed himself for making the connection earlier, and for not heeding their advice before today.

Two days later, Touchstone began to make spells to join the border between Life and Death. These spells came easier, and he felt as though someone else's strength had been added to his. Every time he laid his freshly cut hand on the Stones, he could feel their song, stronger after every successful spell. Touchstone also realized he had not heard the lullabies that day or indeed any day since he had broken the dark spells in the Stones, though he was certainly as tired as he had ever been. _But not so thoroughly spent_ , he mused, _nor so cold and weak_. He was glad the music had ceased.

One evening, after two weeks of tinkering about with spells of mending, he felt something change as he released a set of spells into one of the Stones. He froze. _I've fixed it._ He hardly dared to open his eyes for fear he had failed, but hope won out.

He slowly he raised his head to inspect the Stone. It was whole. There was no sign that it had ever known any damage. He laughed, the jubilant sound echoing off the walls as once Kerrigor's laugh had.

Exhausted but triumphant, he climbed the stairs to the hawk tower to tell Sabriel what he had accomplished.

The leaves were changing colour; the world around him heading into the long sleep that was winter, but Touchstone felt optimistic. Though he was still tired, it was his bed and not the River that called to him.

Sabriel had returned. She could no longer continue her work as Abhorsen, being so far along with child. However she insisted on taking more responsibilities as Queen so that Touchstone could spend more time with the Stones. Her presence lent him strength.

The day after he'd fixed the first Stone, he'd returned to find another was also whole. Sabriel thought it was because three people had been used to break six stones, so fixing one also fixed the other Stone broken with the same blood. It was a great relief to know he only had two more Stones to fix instead of five, and he was sure the others would be far easier, now that he knew what to do. However, the task was still great, and both he and Sabriel were both acutely aware that each day of work was more of his life lost.

Over the next months, he repeated the process with the other Stones, encouraged by how much faster he progressed, now that he knew what he was doing. After he had discovered how to clear the spells holding the border open, he had kept a journal of all he had done. Sabriel had recorded his methods from his letters to her, and he added the specific spells he had used. Most nights when he came up from the reservoir, he only managed to write a few key spells before falling exhausted into bed, but the next morning he would be sure to write everything he had done as well as he could remember it. This he used as a template to fix the other two stones, and he made changes where he had misremembered the spells. The mended Stone lent him strength, and though the spells were still dangerous, he felt sure they would not send him into the River again.

He spent more of his days in the reservoir now, though he was still wary of pushing himself too far. He was so close to being finished, but he still worried he would not be done before Sabriel went into labour. His fear was confirmed.

On a dark night in November, he held Sabriel as she went through what seemed like interminable agony to bring forth their daughter.

He could not bring himself to leave them the following day, but the day after that he forced himself to return to the Stones.

On a dark winter's day three weeks later, as he started down the steps of the reservoir to fix the stones for the last time, he no longer felt tired. Instead, he had to restrain himself from running down the steps to the Stones. This horrible, painful, exhausting and infuriating project he had been working on for so long would end today.

As he looked up at the Stones, now all tall and unbroken after his months of work and this day's final efforts, he felt a sense of peace settle over him. He would forever mourn the loss of his mother and sisters, and perhaps, in time, even the loss of his brother, but now as he looked around the reservoir, he felt an overwhelming joy.

He ascended the reservoir steps and paused outside. It was almost midwinter, but the kingdom was bursting with life. All through the streets lanterns hung in the windows of houses, and people were out enjoying the snow. He watched them for some time, enjoying the afternoon sun before heading inside to tell Sabriel of his success.

A little more than a decade of his life was gone, but not lost. With it, he had ensured that the world he and Sabriel had brought their perfect daughter into would be a better one than the one she had been conceived in. The price was high, but what he had bought with his work was far more valuable than the years he had lost.


End file.
